


Therapy

by thedevilchicken



Series: Therapy [1]
Category: Batman Begins (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark, M/M, Mindfuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-07-24
Updated: 2005-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-05 17:22:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4188420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Today, he has a new patient.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Therapy

**Author's Note:**

> AU pre-Batman Begins, assuming Bruce never met Ducard but did return to Gotham.
> 
> Originally posted to Livejournal on 24 July 2005.

Today, he has a new patient. 

There was a time, not so long ago, that he would have been excited by the prospect. Back when he was still newly qualified, every new case was exciting; every new mind walking into his office represented a new neurosis, a new challenge, maybe a new paper. But now it’s all the same. It’s repetition. It’s day after day after day of sexually frustrated housewives and deranged psychotic killers, depressed teenagers and frustrated mailmen with Uzis. It’s all the same thing, however he looks at it. He can’t help it. He’s bored. 

There are days just every so often when he thinks about quitting his personal practice. It’s something he set up after his unceremonious dismissal from Gotham University, just to tide him over, but it seems to have endured because here he is, back again for yet another afternoon. He thinks about quitting every now and then and he’s already had to cut back on his hours, but this is still where the real money is – his new post as director of Arkham Asylum means more in long-lacking prestige than in pay, after all, and doesn’t even come with decent benefits. But the post piqued his interest further than any private case had done in years, and on top of that it’s been turning out to be somewhat... useful. 

So, today he has a new patient. His secretary, Audrey, reminds him of this as he comes through into the outer office from the stairs down to the street outside; she’s sitting at her desk looking harried as usual as she does her usual efficient job of juggling two phone lines, a fax machine, their email system and a stack of letters roughly as thick as the Encyclopaedia Britannica, but that is _not_ her usual attire. She’s an attractive woman, yes, but she doesn’t usually wear sweaters in that particularly violent shade of fire engine red and unless he’s very much mistaken, she has a lot more leg on show than is her everyday norm. Obviously it’s not for Jonathan’s benefit and this should set alarm bells ringing immediately.

It does. He carefully doesn’t frown, doesn’t look the least bit interested as he asks for the new patient’s name, continuing to unbutton his coat as he does so. 

“Bruce Wayne,” Audrey says, and she colours slightly. So, that’s the afternoon’s mystery solved already. What a disappointment. “He’s waiting in your office.”

He nods curtly and pauses before going inside, taking a moment to hang up his coat beforehand. Then he opens the door quite slowly and with somewhat excessive rattling of the doorknob just to announce his arrival to his newest of patients, and he steps inside. It doesn’t take more than a second or two to confirm that this is indeed Bruce Wayne standing there by one of the room’s large bookcases. He has a book open in his hands; he’s apparently engrossed. 

Jonathan coughs and that gets his attention; he turns for a moment and rakes him with his gaze. Then he closes the book with a snap and returns it to the shelf. 

“Mr. Wayne,” he says as he closes the door to a peering, curious Audrey. Usually, she’s more discreet with her attentions. 

“Call me Bruce.”

He nods, gestures to the leather couch in front of his desk. “Bruce, then. Please, take a seat.”

Jonathan moves across the room, past Bruce Wayne in what looks like and most likely is a ludicrously expensive suit, and takes his own seat in his high-backed desk chair. Bruce pauses for a second, looking surprisingly comfortable with the whole situation, and takes a place in front of the desk. He looks ever so vaguely amused but under that there’s... something else. He can’t place what it is, exactly. 

“So, Mr. Wayne...”

“Bruce.”

Jonathan smiles faintly and nods to the amendment. “ _Bruce_. What can I do for you?”

A pause. He’s being studied. Then: “Have you read my file, Doctor?”

He hasn’t. He hasn’t had time to read it; the appointment was made just yesterday afternoon and he’s spent the whole morning at Arkham. Harvey Dent’s proving to be quite a fascinating character. 

“As a matter of fact, Mr. Wayne – Bruce – I haven’t. Would you like to tell me why you’re here?”

Bruce smiles broadly and Jonathan makes a mental note of this. It’s almost as if he _wants_ to tell him, like he can barely contain his glee. 

“I crashed my Murcielago.”

Jonathan allows himself just a small quirk of his brows as he plays along. “Your...”

“My car, Doctor. A Lamborghini Murcielago. Silver, actually. It’s an excellent ride.” The smile somehow brightens even further. “ _Was_ an excellent ride.”

“And you crashed it.”

“Yes. I totalled it, actually.”

“So...?”

“That’s why I’m here. It’s the third car in two months. The judge waived the reckless driving charge on the condition that I attend counselling. So, Doctor... here I am.”

 

Jonathan nods, steepling his fingers as he leans forward to rest his elbows on the desktop, and he studies the man sitting just across his desk. This all certainly tallies with what he knows of Gotham’s favourite son; he’s been back in town from wherever it was that he disappeared to for a little more than two years and he’s been making waves all along – the models, the actresses, the cars, the extravagant parties... it does all seem to make perfect sense. In Jonathan’s expert opinion – and his opinion _is_ expert – from what he knows already, Bruce Wayne is little more than a spoiled playboy, a bored billionaire with a penchant for breaking his overly expensive toys. But that’s not quite the whole story, he feels. He can almost sense that there _is_ a little something more. He wants to know what it is. 

He flips open the file that Audrey has placed so conveniently on his desk, scans the first page and the next couple of paragraphs though his mind isn’t really on it. 

“Five one-hour sessions,” he reads aloud. “Shall we say weekly?”

Bruce shrugs his broad shoulders and then he nods. “And then I’m cured,” he says, with a flash of that thousand-watt smile, teeth so white that it almost hurts to look at them. But inexplicably, Jonathan’s smiling back. 

“I think I’ll be the judge of that,” he says. 

And so it begins. 

It’s remarkable, he thinks as he gathers himself for the hour to come – for the first time in months, he’s actually found interest in something new. The fun comes in figuring out _why_.

***

“So, you know Nightwing?”

Their second Tuesday now and he’s not entirely sure why he’s asking, but he’s asked. It’s not because he’s interested in the answer because he quite honestly could not care less – he realises of course that half of the city would give their right hand, or their left at least, to meet the mysterious man in black, but Jonathan certainly isn’t one of them. To study him, perhaps... he’s fascinating on a psychological level since really, who dresses in a skin-tight suit and hops around the city after dark, fighting crime? Jonathan’s guess is that it has something to do with a severe childhood trauma, most likely the loss of a loved one. On that score he might have suspected Bruce, if only because he also has the means on top of the motive. 

But Bruce didn’t even have the motivation to finish college, let alone to play vigilante. This is something that they’ve already discussed – Bruce was thrown out of just about every Ivy League university he could find before his little jaunt. He won’t or can’t say why but Jonathan’s already surmised that it’s because of his parents. He doubts that Bruce has ever really recovered from their death, to this day. 

Bruce shrugs. “We’ve met once or twice,” he says. “I’m a prime target around here, or so I’m told. Half the criminals in Gotham want a shot at the Wayne family fortune, that’s why there are two bodyguards waiting in the car downstairs. We don’t leave anything to chance.”

“’We’?”

Bruce shrugs again. “Alfred and myself. He’s the family butler. He takes care of my security.”

Jonathan nods and makes a note of this but it’s more for it to be seen that he’s doing something than for any real reason, since he already knows who Alfred is. In the past week, his file on Bruce Wayne has grown considerably. 

“But you do usually drive yourself, yes?”

Bruce smiles. “To Alfred’s great consternation, and the court’s, I do.”

It’s already been established that Bruce doesn’t drive drunk, that he doesn’t do drugs, and that the only reason his driving even became a matter for the courts was that this third car ended its short life wrapped around a tractor. It _had_ been a little after 2am, and the tractor _had_ technically been on Bruce’s property, but the wreckage had spilled over onto the public road beyond and the DA took great delight in attempting to bring him up on charges. In the end the only consequence was these sessions – Bruce had long since reimbursed the farmer for his demolished tractor. So, Jonathan doesn’t cover this again, even if he realises that he’s going to have to discuss Bruce’s driving habits at some point. Still, for now, they both seem content to discuss other matters. Apparently, such as Nightwing. 

He’s being offhand but Jonathan can tell that Nightwing fascinates him, though whether it’s the character himself or just the idea, he doesn’t know. Perhaps it’s both – after all, in the past year since Nightwing’s first appearance he’s had more than one patient confess to a more than usual fascination with Gotham’s pet vigilante. In fact, there’s one woman at Arkham who has frequent and graphic sexual fantasies about the man, and Jonathan wonders idly, as Bruce goes on to explain the circumstances of their first meeting, if Bruce hasn’t had a few fantasies of his own. It would certainly explain a lot. And so he asks.

“I don’t see what my sexuality could possibly have to do with my driving, Doctor Crane,” he says, but he’s smiling as he says it. That’s interesting. Jonathan smiles back. Bruce chuckles as he looks at him. And they move on. 

They _don’t_ move on to cars, however. It seems to be a tacit agreement between the two of them that despite the judge’s ruling there’s really not much to say about Bruce’s reckless driving. Bruce doubtlessly feels that this is because his propensity toward totalling hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of luxury vehicles inside just a couple of months – seven weeks, to be more precise – is no big deal, but Jonathan has other ideas. It speaks volumes about his personality, he thinks. It says he’s careless with his own life, it says he’s a thrill-seeker, it says that nothing really means much to him anymore and _that_ is where Jonathan’s interest lies, he thinks. Because under that cool, smooth exterior, Bruce Wayne is broken. 

Half the women in the city, and more than a couple of the men, would love to be the one to fix him. But Jonathan doesn’t want to fix him. He’s much more interested in just how broken he could be. 

“What’s your greatest fear, Bruce?” he asks next, completely out of the blue. 

“Bats,” he replies without missing a beat, and that’s interesting. 

“Why bats?”

And he slips into something that’s almost a speech. Jonathan listens to the story, watching him closely, wondering how many times Bruce has told this story and to how many different psychologists. He tells him about the cave, the bats, the opera, that night, his parents’ death... he tells it like he’s making chit-chat over coffee and not really thinking about the words, about the feelings they should evoke in him. He’s even smiling faintly, as if he’s forgotten to turn it off; he’s telling him about his mother’s pearls spilling onto the ground and the ringing in his ears just after the gunshot and he’s smiling like this is what conversation is to him, as if he could just as easily be talking about the weather or the state of the roads. 

Bruce is, of course, just playing along. It’s taken all of an hour and a half and a little research between sessions for Jonathan to come to the conclusion no one else has, that Bruce Wayne isn’t actually mindless and arrogant and isn’t naïve, and beneath that easy smile – Jonathan wonders how long it took him exactly for it to look _easy_ \- there’s a sharp intellect. It’s fascinating, actually, how he could let this fallacy of a Bruce Wayne take over when there’s clearly something deeper. It’s quite a defence mechanism. He wonders if their five hours will be long enough to bring it grinding to a halt. He wonders what the Bruce underneath would be like. He wonders if he could reduce him to tears. 

This is why he’s interested. This is why he’s not just going through the motions, why he’s actually _listening_ , why he looked forward to coming in today. Because it’s not just a spoiled little rich boy sitting there across the desk, smiling and chatting and flirting his way out of a court judgement. He’s Jonathan’s new pet patient, Harvey Dent be damned. 

This is going to be fun. 

***

“Tell me about Dick Grayson,” he says. 

Week three now. He turned up on time as always and Bruce was already there when he walked in – he didn’t have to see him to know this because Audrey was sitting at her desk blushing over the one and only bouquet of flowers he’s ever known her to receive at work. She looked up briefly with a small, embarrassed smile on her face and told him Mr. Wayne was waiting in his office. Jonathan’s noticed that Mr. Wayne has this effect on many women, flowers or no. 

Bruce was lounging on his couch when he went inside. He wasn’t sitting, he really was _lounging_ , practically sprawling, and he actually still is. He’s wearing these light grey sweatpants and a curiously matching cotton t-shirt with the long sleeves pushed up to mid-forearm, and for a second as he saw him, less than a second though he suspects that the time span’s still measurable, Jonathan was flummoxed. It’s a far cry from the tailored suits that he has made in London and the Italian shoes that are flown in from Rome. This was unexpected. Jonathan had started to believe he no longer had it in him to be surprised. Apparently he was wrong, even if it’s proved in this small way. 

The official explanation for his attire is that he’s on his way to the gym, that’s where he’s going when they’ve finished here, but Jonathan’s fairly sure that a guy like Bruce Wayne would have a gym of his own in that ridiculous mansion of his. There’s probably another explanation for it – he’d almost bet on it, considering the not-quite-casual way that Bruce introduced the otherwise useless information about this supposed gym visit into the conversation. But he hasn’t called him on it. He has an idea why he did it, after all, and he’s saving that particular revelation for a later date. He wants to enjoy it. 

So, for a while, they talk about Dick Grayson. Bruce sprawls on the couch, head resting on one leather arm, head tilted so he can look at Jonathan across the desk. And Jonathan looks back at him, his expression completely placid and impassive though he’s actually quite amused. Eventually he looks it, too, though only in a faint way, the way that’s just the slightest of quirks at the corner of his mouth as he makes a note on the pad in front of him. Perhaps he’s enjoying this a little more than he really should, but he honestly can’t think of a serious reason why he shouldn’t. 

Then Bruce shifts slightly on the couch and Jonathan catches himself before his eyebrows can crawl toward his hairline. His t-shirt’s ridden up a little, exposing a smooth stretch of skin by his hip that’s sporting a rather nasty bruise along with his authentic Caribbean tan. 

“How did you get that bruise, Bruce?”

Bruce doesn’t seem any more perturbed by the question than by any other he’s been asked in their time together. Nor does he cover up; he just looks down at the bruise in question and runs his fingers over it. 

“Spelunking,” he says. 

“You spelunk?” 

Bruce smiles a smile that’s remarkably close to a smirk. “Yes, I spelunk.”

Jonathan considers this. “Then why the smile?”

Bruce shrugs, which looks rather strange considering his current position, and smiles a little more brightly. “I like the word spelunking.”

And Jonathan has to chuckle at that. “It’s a good word,” he says, as he writes it down. Then he writes it again. It _is_ a good word. “Do you really do it?”

Bruce nods, crossing his arms over his chest and still not pulling down his hitched up t-shirt. Jonathan doesn’t look though this is clearly an invitation to do just that. 

“Yes. I think I’ve told you I have caves on my property. I base jump, too.” He pauses. “Not on my property. And I climb. I had a wall built for it in the Manor but I prefer real rocks. There’s a catamaran, too, but I forget where I left it.”

Jonathan almost laughs. What’s amusing about that particular statement is that it’s probably true and Bruce _doesn’t_ know where he’s left his catamaran. Like he’s not sure who’s borrowing his private jet this week or like the time he donated five million dollars to the ailing Gotham City University Hospital paediatric unit and this somehow slipped his mind, until he saw his picture in the newspapers. 

“And you race cars.”

“Yes, sometimes I race cars. Usually with friends. Lex Luthor has a new Ferrari 430... usually I don’t enjoy Ferraris but I’ve been thinking about getting one.”

Jonathan leans forward a little, raises his eyebrows. “So that you can crash it?”

Bruce laughs. “Finally, we come to the cars. I don’t mean to crash them, Doc.”

“But you _do_ crash them, Bruce.”

“Has it occurred to you that maybe I’m just a really bad driver?”

Jonathan shakes his head slowly, focusing on him from behind his glasses. “You’re not a bad driver.”

“But how do you know that?”

“Let’s just call it an educated guess.”

Bruce just looks at him for a long moment as he lies there, looking almost serious, looking almost assessing. Then he smiles again, but it doesn’t quite cover him completely this time. Jonathan sees that. It’s intriguing. 

“I’m not a bad driver,” he says. 

And Jonathan says: “I know.” Because he does know. 

Then they move on. Or rather, they move back. 

The first thing Jonathan said to him today was _tell me about Dick Grayson_ , and Bruce told him about Dick Grayson. He’s the nineteen-year-old who’s living in Bruce’s house, who’s been living there for about two years now, and everyone knows it. He is, in Bruce’s words, a rather moody circus brat – his parents were murdered during their high-wire acrobatic act and Bruce was there that night, watching helplessly as Dick saw it all. The boy’s lived with him ever since. 

Jonathan asked him about the rumours. It’s really not surprising that there have been rumours over the months, the years that Dick’s been living in the Manor – after all, what sort of self-respecting, carefree billionaire takes in an orphaned seventeen-year-old without some sort of sinister ulterior motive? Still, Bruce has always denied the allegations and often threatened lawsuits against anyone caught making them. It’s the only time that Jonathan’s noticed the press portraying Bruce as passionate about anything outside of leggy European supermodels or his newest imported sports car. He thought it might be worth a question or two. 

Of course, the answer was the same as always; there’s nothing like that between Dick and himself, and Jonathan believes him. So far he can’t say that Bruce has struck him as the kind of guy who’d abuse his young ward, and Jonathan’s instincts are usually correct. He guesses he just wanted to see how far he could push. Apparently, he can push pretty damn far. 

So now they’re talking about Dick again. Bruce says he gave him a Porsche 911 for his nineteenth birthday but Dick prefers motorbikes. Bruce doesn’t like bikes himself, though he can ride. So Jonathan pushes again. _Why_ doesn’t Bruce like bikes? He doesn’t feel in control. Is Dick in control? He must be. Isn’t he concerned? Dick isn’t a child. 

“You must miss your parents very much.”

And Bruce slips. For the first time, Bruce slips. The apparent non sequitur took him completely off guard, just as it was meant to. Perversely, Jonathan is pleased. 

Bruce smiles but his smile’s sad. “I do,” he says. “All the time.”

Their hour’s up; Bruce leaves the couch, smoothes his t-shirt down over his flat stomach and pauses for a moment just looking at Jonathan before he leaves the room. _All the time_ , he said. And Jonathan, as he hears Bruce chat just a shade off cheerfully with a thoroughly bashful Audrey, tries to pretend that he doesn’t know exactly how he feels. 

***

Where did you go?” he asks in week four. 

They’re not in the office. They _were_ in the office but that lasted for roughly seven minutes before Jonathan paused and quite deliberately, consciously, each word carefully premeditated, asked him to show him his car. Bruce only seemed surprised for a moment before he nodded, his whole face taken up with a winning smile. Jonathan didn’t have to spell it out for him. He hadn’t thought he’d need to. 

They left by the fire escape. That was more to satisfy Bruce’s apparent yearning for adventure than from any real necessity though that too was premeditated; everything about this has played in Jonathan’s head for the past week, keeping him company through his long, laborious hours playing counsellor to bored widows and thrill-killers. He’s glad that it’s happening at last. 

So, they took the fire escape. They could have walked right out the front entrance, right past Audrey at her desk, down the stairs and right past Bruce’s bodyguards in their Mercedes with the tinted glass, but they opened the window by the big bookcase at the back of the room and slipped out without a word to anyone. Jonathan found it amusing even as they did it, jogging down three floors of metal steps and then kicking down the ladder than got them into the alley behind the office, especially as they still had to walk out into the street where the hired security was lurking. However, they managed to time it well – they strolled out into the busy street as one of the large men in black was busying purchasing a couple of non-fat lattes in the coffee shop across the road. 

Bruce pressed a button on his keychain that unlocked the doors of the sleek black vehicle parked in front of Jonathan’s office, and he opened the passenger side door for him. Jonathan had to admit that he was at least moderately impressed; he’d never ridden in a car with doors that opened up instead of out before, and it was somewhat appealing. He slipped inside and pulled the door shut behind him as Bruce appeared in the driver’s side and they shot away as the bodyguards spluttered with their lattes. They left them behind. They haven’t seen them since, and actually, giving them the slip was quite an exhilarating experience. 

“Where did you go?” he asks as they pull off the main road. They’re miles out of Gotham now and Jonathan has to admit that he has no idea where they are. It’s not all that often that he goes out of town. 

“Where did I go _when_?”

“After Chill’s hearing. Where did you go?”

It’s strange. There’s a pause, a moment of silence broken only by the sound of the engine, and Jonathan wonders what exactly Bruce thinks this is. He’s amused, of course, because he knows he’s screwing with the poor guy’s head by doing this, but he does wonder what he thinks this is. He doesn’t ask him, however. He waits for an answer for his original question. 

“The Far East.” Bruce glances at him briefly then returns his eyes to the road ahead. “Japan, Korea, Thailand... Tibet, China. I was in a Chinese jail when Alfred found me.” He sighs. “I thought there was a point to it all. I’m not sure that there was.”

“That must have been difficult.”

Bruce shrugs, his hands tightening and then relaxing on the wheel. “It was supposed to be. I’d need all my fingers and most toes to count the times I almost died.” He doesn’t sound proud of that fact. “I don’t know how I came back alive.”

“But you did.”

He smiles wryly. “Yes, I did.”

Perhaps, Jonathan thinks, this is a taste of the real Bruce. The broken Bruce, the Bruce that almost died an ocean away who still blames himself for his parents’ death. It’s tantalising. It’s all so close beneath the surface, ready to spill out, tangible if he were to touch him now but he’s saving that for later. 

They pull off the road and into what’s something like a driveway. For a moment it occurs to him that no one knows where he is, that he’s in a car with a patient, that for all he knows he could end up dead for three days before anyone finds him, but he knows better. Bruce won’t hurt him. The only one Bruce is capable of hurting these days is himself. And he really is a good driver. So Jonathan sits back and waits for the car to stop as it obviously will in the end and he watches Bruce from the corner of his eye. He wonders if he has the faintest idea what he’s getting into and decides that of course he does. Bruce Wayne is far from naïve, after all. 

“Were you glad to come home?” he asks and breaks the silence that’s hanging between them. 

“Yes,” Bruce replies but there’s just the slightest hesitation. Jonathan nods. Maybe that’s all he really needs to know. Maybe that’s everything now. Maybe that’s the best and only explanation for Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy. Maybe he never wanted to come home. 

The car stops. In the gathering dark, Jonathan can see a huge house looming in the distance and he supposes that’s Wayne Manor. And around them are trees, huge trees, trees that are probably older than either of them or both put together. He’d half expected to find himself by the coast or by the docks, could almost have seen the thrill-seeker in Bruce seeking out a seedy little alley in the Narrows but perhaps that’s a little too colourful even for him and besides, this place seems like the sort that _this_ Bruce would choose. Even if this Bruce appears to be taking a rapid turn back into _that_ Bruce, or maybe he’s stuck somewhere in between. 

“Where are we?” Jonathan asks, though he doesn’t sound particularly inquisitive. And he’s not – he’s just interested in the tone of Bruce’s answer, not in his answer itself. 

“Near the Manor,” he says, and gestures through Jonathan’s window. “You can see it through the trees.” 

Jonathan turns slightly, already knowing he can see the Manor. Bruce sounds oddly calm. He wonders if that’s going to change. He suspects it will. And when he looks back at Bruce, he knows it will. He already looks so expectant... apparently the man who has everything has yet to experience the taboo of skipping out on therapy with his therapist. 

“I want to kiss you, Bruce,” he says, and he watches Bruce’s eyes widen just a fraction. He watches him swallow. He’s not scared, he’s just... overwhelmed, perhaps. Surprised. 

“So, kiss me.”

So, he does. 

It’s actually a complicated affair, much more complicated than Jonathan anticipated; there’s a huge chunk of centre console that separates their seats and he has to lean over that, pulling Bruce to him by his lapels. But he moves willingly and then they’re kissing, their mouths meet and Bruce’s hands find Jonathan’s hair, tugging him in closer. It’s not tentative and Jonathan didn’t expect that it would be – Bruce is used to being dominant in any given situation and it shows. He relaxes and their tongues meet; Jonathan’s hands come to Bruce’s shoulders and his glasses are crushed between the two of them almost painfully but he did expect that, it’s fine. It’s even fine as finally they come up for air and Bruce stays close for a moment, sucking on his lower lip. That wasn’t expected. 

Then Jonathan sits back into his seat. Bruce frowns. 

“I think you should loosen your tie, Bruce.” So he nods and he does so. “And the top few buttons of your shirt.” The first two buttons follow. “Now, untuck your shirt.” Bruce has to lean forward to do this; his jacket’s already stowed away neatly behind his seat and he untucks his shirt but leaves in his cufflinks. Jonathan nods. “Now unbuckle your belt.” Bruce hesitates but only for a split second before he reaches for his belt buckle, tugs it open. “And now your... no.” He stops, glancing around the car. “We should swap seats before we go any further.”

Obediently, Bruce opens his door, and Jonathan does likewise. They get out of the car; it’s a convertible – Bruce has already explained than what to Jonathan is a rather nice black sports car is in fact a Lamborghini Diablo roadster. It’s highly impractical for Gotham with its seeming complete lack of roof but Jonathan guesses that this fact is actually going to work to their advantage, once they’ve swapped seats, and that doesn’t take long. He slips in behind the wheel and closes the door, watches as Bruce, already looking somewhat dishevelled, does the same thing. 

Jonathan pauses, quite deliberately, looks at Bruce. Bruce looks back, holding his gaze, probably correctly guessing that he’s doing this mostly just to heighten the tension but he’s also doing it just to check that Bruce will wait. He’s not looking for a power struggle at all at this particular moment in time and definitely not in the front seat of a Lamborghini Diablo. He’s not looking for a power struggle at all and he doubts that he’s going to get one, though he has a feeling that Bruce is going to be asking himself one or two hard questions a little later on. 

“Put the seat back.” Bruce frowns. “Slide it back as far as it goes.” This seems to make better sense to him and Bruce does so. “Now tilt it back.” He does but it doesn’t go far; there’s really not going to be much room to work with and Jonathan finds himself grateful for his slight frame for the first time in quite a while, grateful that he’s nowhere near as big as Bruce. “Now unbutton your pants.”

Bruce looks at him a little oddly but does as he’s asked. 

“Pull them down.” He raises his eyebrows and doesn’t sound like he’s kidding. “And your underwear, too.”

A swallow, a flex of his jaw, and then he does it. He hooks his thumbs under his belt and brings his expensive pinstripe trousers down to mid-thigh, along with his tight white boxer-briefs. 

“Perfect.” And he means it. Because he looks at him for a long moment with a cool, appraising eye, and Bruce is so close to physically perfect that whatever discrepancy there is just doesn’t matter at all. He’s sitting there looking at him, hands on his thighs as though he’s purposely and purposefully ignoring the fact that he’s already half hard, looking almost embarrassed as if it’s taking quite an effort not to cover up... he’s already flushed in the cool evening air, even. Jonathan smiles vaguely. This just couldn’t be a bad idea. Even if it’s _supposed_ to be a bad idea. 

Then he moves. He’s grateful for the fact that this isn’t Bruce’s new Murcielago hard-top, the one he allowed him to describe in loving detail, because there’s really no way that he’d be able to do what he’s doing, pulling himself up onto his knees on the driver’s seat, leaning over the console, and with a quick glance up into Bruce’s eyes and a lick of his lips, he lets his tongue dart out against the head of Bruce’s erection. 

This isn’t all that he’s planned. There _is_ more but he’s been imagining this, Bruce's skin under his tongue, the taste of him, hot and heady as he thought it should be. He takes him into his mouth and Bruce’s hand settles on his hair, his fingers twisting in it not quite painfully but tightly, and Jonathan chuckles around him. He gives him one long, slow lick, sucking at him lightly, then he pulls back. Bruce makes a sound that might be a curse. Jonathan smiles, intent written all over his face. 

He knows what to do next because this is something that he’s had in his head for a week now, maybe two. Every move’s choreographed, but he takes his time. He takes his time because he knows he _can_ take his time, that he’s planned to, because this is nothing if he doesn’t. It’s going to be at Jonathan’s pace and not Bruce’s and that’s the way it has to be, making him wait. But he knows what he has to do and eventually, after an almost over-long moment in which his eyes linger on Bruce’s flushed cheeks and Bruce’s body, Bruce’s erection, he toes off his shoes and unbuckles his belt. He pauses for a second and pulls off his glasses, slips them onto the dash, and then takes a breath. He shifts up his hips and he pulls down his own pants, his underwear, twists, somehow removes them both with a minimum of fuss and turns back to Bruce. He’s watching him. 

Then he moves again. It’s as elegant as he can make it – which isn’t particularly elegant at all when it comes down to it, though Bruce doesn’t exactly seem to mind – as he shifts across the car and somehow manages to settle astride Bruce’s thighs. He has one knee shoved up against the door and the other against the centre console and Bruce looks up at him with what’s almost a look of amazement, his hands coming to rest at his bare hips. And they just sit there for a moment in that awkward position, somewhere between aroused and just plain uncomfortable, but it’s clear than neither of them wants to stop. Even if this has to look completely ridiculous, but that’s fine because no one’s watching and Bruce shifts forward slightly, his erection brushing against Jonathan’s stomach. His breath’s already coming quickly. Jonathan likes that. It means he wants him, as if there was any doubt. He smiles.

“I want you,” Jonathan says then, his voice little more than a murmur as he looks Bruce straight in the eye. He lets his lips part just a little; he leans closer, one hand slipping to the back of Bruce’s neck; he leans in, lets his lips trace the line of his jaw, mouths against his pulse for a moment before he pulls back, but that’s not for long because he leans back in, brushing his lips against Bruce’s. He’s warm, warmer as Jonathan presses closer, as Bruce’s arms slip around his waist and hold him tight against him, their erections caught between them. It’s exactly as it should be. When he pulls back, Bruce is ready to do just about anything. _That_ is exactly as it should be. 

Bruce doesn’t say no. Jonathan shifts slightly, leaning back over to the driver’s side and pulling something from his jacket pocket. Bruce doesn’t ask what he’s doing – Jonathan guesses than he has a fair idea of what he’s holding as he shifts back into position, taking a moment, to smile and press a slow kiss to his throat. It’s a small tube of lubricant, something he had a feeling he was going to need for this particular session today, a tube that he flips open with one hand as he keeps Bruce fixed in a steady gaze. He only glances away for a second, just as he spreads a little of the lube onto his fingers, and then he looks up; he looks at him, Bruce’s face flushed and perfect in the failing light and Jonathan knows that he knows when he leans forward against the back of the seat and slips his fingers inside himself. 

He does it slowly, catching his lower lip between his teeth as he does so, muscles in his thighs straining just ever so slightly as he rocks against his hand. Bruce can’t look away; he breathes roughly and Jonathan can feel that breath against his neck, over the collar of his shirt. He does it slowly, preparing himself as Bruce doesn’t quite manage to look away from his face, his lips, Bruce’s hands slipping back just a little but not quite bold enough to meet Jonathan’s. He chuckles, lowly, almost breathlessly, and withdraws his fingers; he spreads a little more lube onto them and smiles placidly as he rubs them slowly over his own opening. Then he reaches for the lube again, and he brings it to Bruce’s hand. 

“Why don’t you do it,” he says, this not even remotely a question, not even a suggestion but almost a command. Bruce doesn’t seem to mind; a small, not quite nervous smile quirks his lips as he coats his fingers and Jonathan takes his wrist, leads his hand back and then Bruce’s fingers are inside him, fingers bigger than his own, maybe rougher though he’s careful about it. Jonathan pushes back against them, catching his lip again. Bruce seems enthralled. The look doesn’t even leave his face as Jonathan stills his hand, brings his fingers from inside him. Possibly because he knows what’s next. 

Jonathan has the lube again, coating his palm, his fingers; he grins briefly, presses a quick kiss to Bruce’s jaw before he brings his hand to Bruce’s cock. Bruce hisses in a breath and Jonathan almost chuckles at it, stroking at him firmly, slicking him thickly. Then he moves, kneels up, ponders this for a second then manages to get Bruce to shift down a little into what has to be a truly uncomfortable position but at this particular moment in time, it seems that neither of them is exactly bothered about comfort. It’s actually easier than anticipated to straddle Bruce’s hips and bring the head of his cock back against him; he has to lean back slightly but that’s fine, even if the edge of the windshield’s pressing against his shoulder blades. It’s fine; he raises himself up a little on his knees and he’s watching Bruce, looking right at him, as he presses down. He’s watching him as he takes him inside. 

Bruce gasps as Jonathan moves; Jonathan bites down a little on his lip, and then again, harder, almost hard enough to draw blood; he’s sinking down further on Bruce's cock until he's inside him just as far as he can go and then he settles, pauses, the thumb of one hand moving slowly over Bruce’s throat as he looks at him. Then he moves again, clenching around him though he doesn't exactly mean to, and that makes Bruce curse and try to glare at him though he's clearly far from actually being annoyed. Jonathan smiles. He moves _again_ , bringing himself up this time, slowly, almost painfully slowly, and then drops back down with his jaw clenching to keep in the gasp that would be inevitable otherwise. And Bruce's hands come to his hips again, fingers grasping just a little more tightly. Jonathan's watching him as he does it, as he moves again and then again, hands clenching on the back of the seat that his knee's starting to stick to. And his thighs are tight, almost, almost cramping as he moves _again_ , faster. He’s still amused by it all. This wasn’t a bad idea.

It's strange, he thinks. This is exactly as he planned it but it’s strange now in its intensity, he’s surprised by it because there's really nowhere to move to and Bruce is looking at him, eyes dark and close and his hair's clinging to his forehead with that light sheen of sweat. They can't even really sit up straight. And even if Jonathan could, this position's ridiculous, Bruce's cock brushing past his prostate with each new stroke and he knows he's making a strange sort of contented murmur that was never part of the plan but he finds that he couldn't actually care less. From the look on his face, he guesses that Bruce couldn't, either. 

And it’s strange because already he’s close and perhaps he should be but then Bruce shifts one hand and touches him, makes him strain forward against him and clench his teeth again. Bruce strokes him, without even a hint of restraint, roughly like Jonathan's moving now, hard and fast and Jonathan shivers but he can't tell if it's from the friction of it or the way the evening breeze is blowing over his overheated skin. Bruce has got his jaw clenched now but his teeth bared with what looks oddly like desperation, hips shifting up in a way that just can't be comfortable, has to be tense and hard and Jonathan can feel himself tensing too, muscles almost trembling and his breath catches and there's a familiar tight heat spreading lower and lower inside him as he feels Bruce move in him. 

This can't possibly last, he thinks. But it's really not supposed to, not according to the plan. 

Bruce is still looking at him. He's still jerking him roughly and shifting in him hard and he's looking at him; he moves his free hand and leans up and Jonathan doesn't know how he's managing that, maybe it’s all that spelunking. He’s slipping his hand into the damp hair at the back of his neck and when they kiss it's far from tender; it's harsh, it's almost painful, bruising, crushing for a moment as they're gasping against each other. Jonathan's hands grasp at Bruce's shirt, harder, twisting at it as his teeth rake over his lip and he can't help it, can't stop himself from coming as he pulls back. He lets it happen. He stills as Bruce flops back against the seat, thrusts again, _again_ , eyes closed, screwed shut. He comes inside him.

They're breathless then, understandably so. Jonathan sits back as far as he can, shoulder blades pressing to the windshield as he rubs one hand over his forehead thoughtfully. He shivers again and he can feel Bruce breathing hard under him, chest rising and falling under Jonathan’s free hand as he catches his breath just like he's doing himself. His knees are aching and there’s a twinge in his back and he knows he has to move; he rests his hands over Bruce's chest for a minute, fingers splayed over his expensive Italian shirt before he shifts and lets him slips from inside him; it's an awkward series of movements that take him back into the driver's seat, not exactly comfortable as he sits there and Bruce waits a moment before looking at him. 

He almost looks confused. Now would be the time for a comforting word, a glance, a smile, a touch... Bruce needs it. All of this, it’s more than he knows how to take. Jonathan knows that. 

“We should switch back,” he says. And he says nothing else.

Bruce nods, but he doesn’t move. He looks like he’s thinking about it, trying to gather himself mentally before taking another breath and he pulls up his pants, opens his door. Jonathan watches him for a moment when he’s managed to pull his own clothes roughly back into place, watches him tucking in his shirt and then abandoning his tie altogether behind one seat. Then Jonathan opens his own door and they swap seats again, both acutely aware that the car’s interior is probably going to need a little attention in the not too distant future. These cars weren’t exactly meant for this. Neither was Bruce.

They settle down in their respective seats and a silence drops, heavy, between them. Jonathan doesn’t mind it, personally, and he suspects that ordinarily Bruce would be quite happy in it, too. But not today. He almost smiles to himself.

“Was that good for you?” he asks, finally having mercy but obviously not a great deal.

Bruce looks at him strangely and Jonathan can’t say that he blames him when he’s asked a question like that. “Are you asking as my therapist, or...”

“I don’t know,” he says, and he shrugs. “Maybe I’m asking as Jonathan, Bruce.”

“And maybe you’re not.”

He nods, conceding the point. “And maybe I’m not.”

Bruce laughs, leaning forward against the steering wheel. He actually _laughs_ , resting his head on the back of his hands, not exactly sounding full of mirth though that’s not exactly surprising. “I thought you were supposed to be helping me, Doc.”

Jonathan pauses for a second, not quite sure what he’s supposed to do or say for that second, and that’s unusual, it’s disconcerting. He takes a breath and holds it; the car smells of sex and leather and Bruce’s cologne and the early evening air and _that’s_ unusual too, but he knows that in all this time he’s not looked out of control for a second. That’s comforting. That’s the secret, after all. That’s the reason Bruce will do all of this even though he must know that it’s wrong on some level. Because every step of the way, Jonathan’s been in control.

“I _am_ helping you.”

He thinks about it and he doesn’t think it’s a lie. He doesn’t think that Bruce does, either, but he pauses there against the wheel and he takes a breath to compose himself, takes another. It almost works, he almost looks fine when he sits back. He almost doesn’t look like he’s broken inside. 

“It was good,” he says in the end, and he flashes a smile that’s almost, almost perfect. “Thanks, Doc.”

Jonathan acknowledges this with an incline of his head as he puts on his glasses. “Perhaps you should take me home now, Bruce,” he says.

So he does. He starts the engine and starts back toward Gotham in the sunset. Jonathan’s almost blinded by the orange-purple sky as they talk on the way but he doesn’t really need to see. What he’s done to Bruce can never be undone. He’s marked him mentally – he can practically hear the wheels turning as Bruce asks himself what exactly he’s just done, why. He’s marked him. And he likes the idea. 

***

Session five. It’s all drawing to a close. 

Bruce called him last week. It’s not the first time that a patient’s called him between scheduled appointments but it _is_ the first time that a patient’s called him on his personal cellphone. Audrey doesn’t have the number and he doubts that she would have given it out against his wishes anyway, even to Bruce Wayne. Still, even if it’s not Audrey, and he definitely didn’t give out his number himself, he’s not worrying. He’s not trying to find out how exactly Bruce found it. He’s not actually interested in _how_ , just in the fact that he did. He might be impressed if he hadn’t already attributed it to something along the lines of the power of his extensive wealth and to that of Wayne Enterprises. 

He asked him to the opera. Jonathan doesn’t think he was joking and that’s interesting – again, this isn’t a first for a patient, but this was the first time that Jonathan ever actually gave it any serious consideration. He caught himself wondering if they could get away with it and still maintain any level of professional credibility, and then he had to remind himself that his reward for the counselling of Bruce Wayne was _not_ intended to be a night at the opera. He politely declined but didn’t do him the discourtesy of citing any rules of professional conduct as his reason why. He just told him he was busy and that was perfectly true – he’s been very busy at Arkham. He has... projects. 

It’s not a particular surprise that he wanted to see Bruce, however; this is, after all, the closest that Jonathan has come to having a real relationship in quite some time, even with their current quirks. He doesn’t find this particularly sad or depressing since it’s always been a conscious decision. Just as it’s been a conscious decision _not_ to see Bruce during the week. He knows it’s better for both of them if he doesn’t accede to his wishes, however attractive they may be. It’s better for both of them that they’ve waited. Very much better. 

And it was just as conscious a decision for them to have sex on his couch. It’s their last day, after all. It’s better that they’ve waited.

Bruce was perching on the edge of Audrey’s desk when Jonathan walked in. He was sitting there making idle chit-chat about movies and how he’d dated the leading lady of the film that Audrey had seen at the weekend. Audrey seemed genuinely impressed and didn’t seem to know what to say when confronted with that pearly-white smile and perfect hair and manicured nails, the tanned skin and sculpted body that all go together to create an illusion of Bruce Wayne. In a slightly perverse way, considering her obvious attraction to him, she almost seemed relieved when Jonathan walked in. She did blush less, at least. 

One last dazzling smile – Jonathan is starting to wonder if his jaw ever aches from all that smiling since God knows his own aches in sympathy – and they disappeared into the inner office. Jonathan held open the door for him and closed it behind him. Then he locked it. He doesn’t know if Bruce has noticed this or not, since he gave no outward sign that he did. Then he leant back against his desk, perched on the edge of it just as Bruce had done with Audrey’s, and looked down at Bruce as he sat there just in front of him. 

“I want you, Bruce,” he said, with the vaguest of smiles on his face. “Now. On my couch.”

This was forty minutes ago. Now Jonathan’s watching him, after it, his eyes tracing the long rough lines of Bruce’s body as he lounges there. He’s naked. His fingers trail over the bruises that he says he got while sailing. Apparently he’s found his catamaran.

“Aren’t you going to ask me questions, Doc?” Bruce asks as he reaches over and passes him his glasses. Jonathan puts them on and returns to studying the contours of Bruce’s stomach, as much with his mouth as his eyes. 

“It’s our last session, Bruce. Do you really want me to ask you questions?”

Bruce shrugs. “It seems fitting.”

So Jonathan sighs and he sits up, pressing a quick kiss to the smooth skin by Bruce’s navel as he does so. It would have been so easy to play the petulant lover, pouting up at Bruce, all big blue eyes, sulking until Bruce just gave up on the idea of questions, but he knows the end when he sees it. So he pulls himself up and strokes back a few stray strands of hair from Bruce’s forehead. The tenderness is confusing him, he can tell. And he smiles wryly. 

“Get dressed,” he says, “and we’ll continue.”

They both do so in silence, quickly, though with the odd surreptitious glance or two, catching each other in the act of pulling on a shirt, tying a shoelace. Then Jonathan moves back around his desk and takes his seat. Bruce sits back down on the couch, fitting his cufflinks back into place, fixing his tie. 

And then they look at each other. So, this is the end.

“Do you want to die, Bruce?”

He frowns; he says nothing. 

“Do you think that your death will make up for the loss of your parents?”

The look on his face says he’s hit a nerve. The look on his face says he’s breaking inside. Jonathan takes off his glasses. 

“One day you won’t walk away, Bruce. Your parents would be ashamed.”

And that’s it. That’s everything he has to say on the subject, that’s everything he’s ever had to say but was intending to spare him. Bruce has brought this on himself. Jonathan wanted to spare him. 

They sit in silence. Jonathan supposes that it would be uncomfortable if he weren’t fascinated by the play of emotions over Bruce’s face; he’s angry, he’s sad, he’s frustrated, terrified, appalled... he’s all of these things and more at the exact same time, the disparate emotions warring together, and it’s really quite something to see in him. It’s exhilarating, really. But it’s all just for a moment before Bruce looks up at him, and he nods. 

“I can see why they sent me to you,” he says slowly, almost under his breath. “You’ve made your point.” Jonathan inclines his head just slightly, not quite a nod, in acknowledgment. “But did you have to go so far to make it?”

“Yes.” He _did_ have to. “I _did_ have to. Why would you listen to a court-appointed psychologist, Bruce? Particularly one that you’d only just met.”

Bruce nods somewhat reluctantly. “I wouldn’t.”

“Clearly.”

Bruce sighs and Jonathan smiles wryly as he watches him run his palms down tiredly over his thighs. And then he stands. This is exactly as he’d planned, everything, he’d expected, but for some reason Bruce’s reaction still stings. 

“Well thanks, Jonathan,” he says, and he turns to leave. “I understand. I suppose I’ll be seeing you.” But what he really means is goodbye. 

“Bruce.”

“Yes?” Oh, he turns and he looks almost hopeful. And for the briefest fraction of a second, Jonathan has to wonder... but, no. No. The plan doesn’t change. The plan _doesn’t_ change.

“There’s something I’d like for you to see.”

It’s risky and in a way it’s cheating because he still believes he could have broken him himself. Today, this is nothing compared to what he could’ve done. 

“What is it?”

The gas acts quickly. So quickly that it’s all over before Bruce realises what’s happening and Jonathan’s left calling for Audrey, calling for help as he holds Bruce tight in his arms. He’s trembling. He’s terrified. He’s broken.

Today, Arkham will have a new patient. And Jonathan will never have to say goodbye.


End file.
